Star Wars needs a new hit show, and Lucasfilm has pinned a lot of (new) hopes on Skeleton Crew. It has now been revealed that the upcoming adventure series has cast a sitcom legend in a mysterious new role: Jaleel White.
Audiences will almost certainly be most familiar with Jaleel White for his role as Steve Urkel on Family Matters, the hugely popular ABC sitcom that ran from 1989 to 1997 (with one final season on CBS). Famously, although White’s character was intended for a single appearance, the near-delirious audience reaction to the nerd soon made him a recurring regular and eventually the star of the show.
Family Matters is one of the most iconic sitcoms of the 1990s and, inarguably, Jaleel White is the public face of the show. That means that when the actor shows up in Skeleton Crew, at least a few viewers will think, “Hey, isn’t that space pirate Steve Urkel?”
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Lucasfilm has released new images from Skeleton Crew, which appear to depict a number of pirates, including Jaleel White. Although his character (who seems to be cybernetically enhanced) is as-yet unknown, sharp-eyed Star Wars fans have already recognized a character named Vane (Marti Matulis) who previously appeared in The Mandalorian standing near him.
Skeleton Crew is the next confirmed live-action Star Wars series for Disney+ and the first that is targeted at a younger audience.
It was created by Jon Watts and Christopher Ford (who also wrote the majority of episodes) and will star an ensemble cast of junior actors, including Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Kyriana Kratter, and Robert Timothy Smith. Jude Law will appear in the show as Jod Na Nawood, a character who may or may not be a Jedi survivor of the Great Purge.
The official Lucasfilm description of the show reads, “The series follows four children who end up on an adventure to make their way home after being lost in the galaxy following a discovery they make on their home planet.” That doesn’t include any mention of Steve Urkel, but we have to assume he will be a crucial part of the overarching narrative.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Christopher Ford confirmed that Jaleel White was part of a group of space pirates, saying, “With the era we’re in, we’re kind of getting to play with that lawless thing. The Empire is gone, and so we’re playing with a part of the galaxy that has a resurgence of piracy.”
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Skeleton Crew takes place in the years after the Battle of Endor but before the events of The Force Awakens (2015), which is the same time period as The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka. That means that we’re almost certainly going to be getting some cameos or references to ongoing plotlines, but also, more importantly, pirates.
Ford continued, saying, “Pirates are talked about so much in Star Wars. People would call Han Solo a pirate and he’d be like, ‘How dare you?’ And we’ve seen some awesome pirates in the animated shows. So this was something where both Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau were really excited to do more pirate stuff.”
From Urkel to space pirate: Jaleel White has had quite a career.
Are you going to watch Skeleton Crew?